Tigranes

Well, SP: people, especially RPG fans, have been complaining of short games on the internet for a while now. Even Jade Empire was deemed short - and I would tend to agree. I finished it in 14 hours, no walkthrough, no powergaming, normal difficulty, got most of the stuff/quests. My point is that it matters less that a game is short, if it delivers a level of entertainment great *and* complete enough to justify its cost. If it leaves you feeling cheated, then no. At least, it's not justified for you, is it? On the subject of multiple CDs.. did FF7/8/9 even fill up their final CDs? Did the ending FMV occupy that much disk space?

and 'twas the same that was said, by creators of one morrowind..

The quick question (because I loathe New Zealand timezones and always missing 3-4 pages ) is, are the newer "crop" of shorter games, or if that point is to be refuted, the newer crop of games, worth playing? Someone brought up $8.30 an hour for a 5-6 hour $50 game, but I wouldn't mind paying that for Torment. I would for most other games. Shadow of the Colossus was short too, wasn't it? Correct me if I'm wrong there. Are games like that and Kameo worth playing anyway? Or at least close to it? Or are they being criticised of short length because they failed to deliver a complete and entertaining experience in that timeframe?

But Hades, it's Mariokart!

Well, I was.. 12 or whatever, playing my first RPG ever (Final Fantasy VIII), getting to... Aden? some Boss right at the end of the third disc by just using Guardian Forces and Boost, because I had no idea how Junction worked and I didn't set it to Auto. On the other hand, I would have beaten the whole game if using GFs in that battle didn't mean I would damage one of my characters, therefore committing effective suicide. I was the KING of Boost. Hire me for Morse Code? ^_^

pr'haps he's counting blackguard and those other inbetween things. hm. although, i must say, take out the horrible pixelisation and daggerfall doesn't look that much worse there.

I don't know. You guys already get headaches from just Epiphany.

The Playstation 2 debuted at 1000$NZ over here. (New Zealand) That is about 700 US dollars, or more. The standard pricing for PC games is 100$ (70US), and 120-130$ (85-90US) for current generation console games. Sad.

The key change with Bioware's dev-pub relationship is probably Elevation's implication that its investments will be enough so Bioware need only rely on publishers for distribution, not for funding. This will essentially degrade the role of the publisher from "Partner" or "Influential" to the provider of a simple, mechanical service, but the tradeoff is that the influence of money is transferred not to Bioware itself, but yet again to another company, which operates as much like a cash-cow machine as publishers, if not more. Not to mention throwing Pandemic into the mix?

Precisely. Bono's Rock Star, designed by Dave Gaider!

What does "backing" mean, in reality? What level of involvement does Elevation have? If I understand aright, it seems to mean they provide funding / investment - which means *nothing* changes from Bioware pitching individual games to publishers, and all that mumbo-jumbo from the Gamespot article was lieeees.

Well, the price just got higher. And sadly enough, it's a kind of markup that most people will, knowingly or not, endure.

Yes. And judging by the fact that they let players leave and come back during a game, have the AI take over people who leave, and people take over AI by joining a game in progress, I'd be surprised if there was no save function.

Of course not, they all have backwards compatibility! Woo!

jumjalum: there has been no official confirmation. game-sites mean nothing. anyway, yeah... to me (RPG/RTS player), there is *nothing* that is appealing about the new lineup. what happened to Colossus, even? Oblivion? The RPGs from the guy that created FF?

PST vs Fallout. Think of the children!

I get directed to the main page. I feel left out.

Oh, Volourn. Anyhow, this is probably the proof that no matter how elitist a gamer one is, and clamours for "gameplay" with long and philosophical posts, they are just as ready to debate on the graphics. Hell, Volourn, shouldn't you judge NWN2 by its gameplay if you want to compare it to Oblivion? No? Yes? But then, I'm not being entirely fair. We can certainly talk about artistic merit if not the technological stratosphere of graphical memory-hogging. Based on these and other shots we saw before at nwn2news, I'd say indoor / city - so, "Human" - scenes still look very 'blocky' and unnatural, although we have more realistic houses, curbs on streets, not everything is on nice neat lines... I mean, I don't possess the artistic or graphical knowledge to describe it. But the natural environments look much, much better, IMO.

I wasn't aware we were letting Epiphany rape so many threads a day. He might overdose. Anyway, it looks like pretty much every console has BC now... and it's coming to be expected of every console, sort of like the expectations for the ultra high level of graphics Costiyakin(sp?) & Co. despises. Wouldn't BC make a console more reliant on its "backlog" of games? Or perhaps not, and it is just a bonus? But since all of you seem to want to talk about technological semantics, let's ask something here: does BC support, in any of the consoles' way of doing them, impair developments or functionalities in any other area? What's the cost of BC?

Looks like a beer company logo.

Depends on your relationship with the said neighbours, doesn't it? The flowers suggest either an awkwardly embarrassed sort of couple, or someone who can take a joke and hope you can, too. Or maybe they're just feeling very, very happy.

Oh, they do. Except their influence was dwarfed by another, somewhat gigantic force of nature, which at the same time tenderly put to rest a human defensive mechanism called "discernment of crap".

No. You talked to a girl.

Either that, or the imperfect nature of the backward compatibility is so great they can't just say "none", and simply decide to concede "little". Who knows, though.

The pernicious rapacity of collective intelligence by the nominally 'adult' never ceases to astound me.